


Step One, Step Two, Step Three, Repeat

by Kirstein_and_Arlert



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 09:02:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirstein_and_Arlert/pseuds/Kirstein_and_Arlert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha works to overcome her blinding fear of the Hulk via desensitization AKA Natasha keeps popping up everywhere and Bruce is confused (until he isn't).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Step One, Step Two, Step Three, Repeat

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt.](http://hariboo-smirks.livejournal.com/301452.html?thread=2494860#t2494860)

He doesn’t even notice her at first. There are so many people coming and going from the labs that Agent Romanov doesn’t even register on Bruce’s radar for weeks.  
  
The thing is, she’s quiet. There’s no smart remark (Clint), no sharp jab in the ribs (Tony), questions about how he is and what he’s doing (Thor) and no polite knock on the door (Steve) when she enters. Most of the time he doesn’t even realise that she’s there until he turns around to see her standing beside the door or reading his latest research off a screen.  
  
After he begins to notice her, Romanov’s suddenly everywhere. She’s standing halfway down the hall when he leaves his room – which is more of an apartment because Tony doesn’t do things by halves, rooms included – and leaning against the kitchen counter while he makes breakfast. She’s turning up when there are no orders for her to be with him.  
  
He’s confused to say the least, but she isn’t disruptive in any way, and Bruce is grateful for that. Most of the time, he just ignores her until he needs something, and she passes it to him without comment, her eyes a little too wide.

  
  


  
  
It’s been a bad day – there were aliens in Brooklyn and a few buildings were levelled by the other guy, and Bruce would like Tony to stop using him as a barrier when Pepper wants him to go to meetings – and he wakes up naked in the middle of the woods.  
  
There’s a dull throb in his shoulder where it’s wedged against a tree, but he isn’t very cold. It takes him a second to realise that there’s a blanket over him. It isn’t perfect (one of his feet is sticking out and it’s freezing cold) and it’s likely to have been thrown over him from a distance, but it’s better than nothing, better than what he expected.  
  
“Are you awake?” Romanov asks, and Bruce pulls the blanket around himself before he sits off. As much as Tony jokes about him ending up naked in front of every person he works with, it’s not a set of encounters he wants to complete. Her presence surprises him. His mind flashes on the expression of fear on her face before the other guy came out. He thinks that, after that, she’d be avoiding him...  
  
Oh.  
  
He stands up, and there’s that expression again. Surprise and... Bruce tells himself that the other thing is a trick of his mind or the light, because it can’t be there.

  
  


  
  
“You’re looking for the other guy,” he says, adjusting the calculations and smiling at her. In response, she steps closer until she’s crowding into his personal space. His heart beats faster – a normal biological reaction, he swears – but the other guy isn’t coming out.  
  
“I was,” she says, staring at him the same way he’s seen her look at targets and the same way she looked at him when he tested her before. “I’m not sure what I’m looking for now.”  
  
Bruce says nothing—what is there to say?  
  
They stand there for a long time, and it feels as if she’s evaluating him the same way he is her—she’s calm under pressure; doesn’t startle easily (most of the time); she’s skilled.  
  
Natasha doesn’t stop coming to the lab, but she stops standing so far back and Bruce stops pretending not to see her.


End file.
